Sunday, December 6, 2020

Today's Notes 12/6/20

Good afternoon everybody,

Ah Sunday's.... the start of the week, which of course means tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden Overwatch is on tap for the weekly chaos and mayhem that game brings. And considering this is the second week of December, that means we'll probably being seeing the start of the Winter Event as well in the near future. Really excited to see what new skins get added.

Of course, the day already started off with Fitness Boxing, with a 40 minute workout.... ok ok, it was 39 minutes I just rounded up. Really a nice session overall with straights, jabs, hooks and body hooks. My timing was a little bit off at times, but overall felt solid. Hell with the weather getting colder, the feeling of of the body warming up doing what is basically an aerobics set is really noticeable.

Last night's Twitch Sings stream was really awesome, being probably the most watched stream I've had of that game since prior to the announcement the game is shutting down on January 1st. As I've avoided last night, the plan to do a tribute to Frank Sinatra on Saturday really depends on his songs still being in the game come the 12th, and I've certainly done my best to have back up tunes as well in case anything gets removed from Twitch Sings. As of 3:45 PM EST today, there are still 3146 songs left on Twitch Sings, which includes everyone I listed in the previous post. So keep your fingers crossed folks.

Big thanks to DaemonsW0lf (twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf) and BluVelvet (twitch.tv/bluvelvet) for the raids last night, it is always cool when folks choose to direct their audience to my pokey little channel. DaemonsW0lf was doing a live reading of Metro 2033 while BluVelvet was also doing a Twitch Sings stream. They are both awesome, and I hope you check both of them out when they are live!

Finished listening to Doctor Who: Whispers of Terror last night, which is such a fun story that sees The Doctor (Colin Baker) and Peri (Nicola Bryant) arrive in an audio museum as mystery involving murder and a political conspiracy is taking place. One of things I love about Colin Baker's portrayal of the Doctor, particularly in the audio form is just how bombastic his voice is, yes he can be really subtle, but the loudness of The Doctor speaks volumes, even when one considers the coat he wears! 

And on that bombshell that will wrap up today's notes, we'll see you over on Twitch at about 7 PM EST! Have a great rest of your day everyone!.



Best of the Week November 29 to December 5, 2020

Here are the best moments from my Twitch Streams for the week of November 29 to December 5, 2020, which features Overwatch, Fitness Boxing, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Super Mario Bros 35, Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories, The Division 2, Star Trek Online, Celebrity Deathmatch, Showdown: Legends of Wrestling and Twitch Sings!

 



Upcoming Stream - December 12: Fred Casden Presents A Birthday Tribute To Frank Sinatra

Back in August, I had the idea of dedicating December 12, 2020 to doing nothing but all of the Frank Sinatra songs on that were on Twitch Sings... then Twitch announced they were shutting down Twitch Sings, and on December 1st, a ton of songs were removed including half of the songs listed. Needless I was disappointed... but with the hope that no more songs are removed from Twitch Sings between now and December 13th, the Frank Sinatra Birthday tribute is what I'm planning to do. To fill things out I'll include songs from Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr, Vera Lynn, Louis Prima, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Marilyn Monroe. 

Obviously I'll be performing a lot of solos, but hopefully I'll find duets that night to work with to include others in this celebration of The Chairman of the Board.

Again this will be for Saturday December 12, 2020, starting at 7 PM EST over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Fingers crossed that all songs listed below are still on Twitch Sings come this Saturday!

Frank Sinatra
Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
Fly Me To The Moon
Fly Me To The Moon (Slow Version)
I Get A Kick Out of You
I've Only Have Eyes For You
I've Got The World On A String
I've Got You Under My Skin
Love's Been Good To Me
Luck Be A Lady
Luck Be A Lady (Live)
My Funny Valentine
My Way
Old Devil Moon
One For My Baby
Summer Wind (Solo)
The Lady Is A Tramp
The Way You Look Tonight
Witchcraft
You Make Me Feel So Young

Sammy Davis Jr
I've Gotta Be Me 

Bing Crosby
White Christmas

Dean Martin
Baby, It's Cold Outside
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
On The Street Where You Live
Return To Me
Send Me The Pillow That You Dream On
Since I Met You Baby
Sway (Quien Sera)
True Love

Ella Fitzgerald
All The Things You Are
Blue Moon
Blue Skies
Cheek To Cheek
Cry Me A River
How High The Moon
I Love Paris
Let's Do It (Fall In Love)
Love For Sale
Misty
My Funny Valentine
Puttin' On The Ritz
Stormy Weather
Too Darn Hot

Louis Prima
Just A Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody

Marilyn Monroe
Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend

Nat King Cole
(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
When I Fall In Love
Autumn Leaves

Vera Lynn
A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square

Saturday, December 5, 2020

Today's Notes 12/5/20

Good afternoon everybody,

As the sun sets I get around to writing today's notes, where does the day go when you wake up in the middle of afternoon LOL. Anyway, got the Fitness Boxing session done first today, it was a good workout with actually the sets included building up on one another as opposed to feeling like they were randomly selected by the game.... granted the sets in the sessions are always randomly selected by the game, but to have today's order actually felt like it each one was added to motions that were done before it if that makes sense. It probably doesn't.


Made sure to drop on my Island of Ocean View, and it's always nice to see what my residents are up to at different times of day. Granted there is always that odd circumstance of one not being anywhere to be found that just puzzles the hell out of me. So if you're wondering why the screenshot from Animal Crossing New Horizons is at the top, that's why. Besides what Audie said was really cool.

Re-listened to Doctor Who: Phantasmagoria, which was the second Doctor Who Main Range story rleeased by Big Finish Production way back in 1999, with Peter Davison and Mark Strickson reprising their roles as The Doctor and Turlough respectively. The story is that the Tardis lands in London in the late 1700s where patrons of a local gaming house have been going missing, It's a fun adventure to listen too, with all the subtle details and clues of what's going on gradually being revealed, with a nice subplot involving a mysterious highwayman adding to the intrigue with a forward-thinking twist that is both very obvious and yet still surprising at the same time.

Last night's stream over on twitch.tv/fredcasden was focused on two games from the PlayStation 2 era, the first being Celebrity Deathmatch, which of course was based on the show of the same name that aired on TV. For as good as it looks in terms of representing the source material, it certainly comes across as button masher. Some of the finishers are really creative and hold up nicely (such as Mr T's A-Team Van Drop) while others look like they were basically out of Mortal Kombat (such as Busta Rhymes' Kung Fury Chops). Perhaps the best finisher is Jerry Spinger's Final Thoughts which uses some of the set pieces from his talk show to give it the proper atmosphere. Best part is since my old memory cards still work, I had my save file so we were able to do matches as every character in the game.CD does have an Episodes mode, which is basically 6 blocks of 3 matches, so we might take a night to go through it in order to count this game on the Gaming Tour

The second game was ShowDown Legends of Wrestling, and I can safely say, remember how to play this was a lot more interesting and fun than dealing with the controls for WWE 2K20. We only did 5 matches, but because of how the game is laid out, the matches ended up being longer than almost anything seen in more recently standard 1 on 1 matches within the WWE 2K series. Jimmy Hart's fingerprints are all over the music with his knack of doing obvious covers that are tweaked just enough to avoid trouble. Still it was a lot of fun to revisit this game on a random Friday night. While there isn't a story or career mode, there is a Challenge mode of sorts, to replay specific matches, similar to what the WWE 2K series has done the past few years with the Four Horsewomen, Daniel Bryan and Attitude Era modes... so maybe if I go through that we can count SD:LOW on the gaming tour as well.

With it being Saturday, we'll be doing Twitch Sings tonight as we continue to march closer to the day the music dies....or when the game shuts down on January 1, 2021. The current count for songs still in the game is at 3146, so nothing has been removed following the initial purge at the start of the week. Since I've done some off stream duets this week, I won't have many to start with tonight. We'll get the ball rolling at about 7 PM EST over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

And that will wrap up today's note, have a great evening!


Friday, December 4, 2020

Video Commentary: The Phillies Will Suck In 2021

For this week's video commentary, I give my thoughts on the Philadelphia Phillie's lack of urgency when it comes to this year's off-season. Recorder 12/4/20



Today's Notes 12/4/20

Good afternoon everybody,

Ugh, way way way overslept today... but still first thing I did was Fitness Boxing. Today's session ran 39 minuets and felt good. I've been asked how does it work the legs, well, basically anything that involves ducking, weaving, body punches and stepping forward, backward or side to side is going to involve the lower body. So while it not as intense as say Just Dance when it comes to legs, you certainly will feel the burn on certain combinations of sets to do. 

Twitch Sings as of right now still has 3,146 songs, and I'm really hoping what's left of the Frank Sinatra tunes stays past December 12th, which is of course Sinatra's birthday. You see prior to the announcement that Twitch Sings was closing down I was already making plans to do a Sinatra based stream on the 12th. Hell I was going to put on a suit and everything. Granted there was only like a dozen of songs he's done in the game, so the stream would've been filled out with other similar tunes. So fingers-crossed we'll be able to do that next week!

Last night's stream of Star Trek Online was a lot of fun, big thanks to B0B_B3AR for the raid at the start of the stream, and also Sw33ts_Gaming for resubscribing and giving a gift sub to another viewer! Now we only did three missions, well technically it was just two because one was basically a patrol encounter that counts as a mandatory mission to do for story context, but it was an awesome night. Speaking of story context, did get into a rant last night regarding how technically The Romulan Republic has the most consistent continuity within Star Trek Online because their story arc because their opening missions has not changed since the faction was introduced. Hell the Romulan Republic probably has the most personal stakes in everything involving the Iconian War when you think about it.

I'm not totally sure what we'll be doing tonight, but I do know the plan is start at 9:30 PM EST over on twitch.tv/fredcasden. Folks need to realize something, when I set my schedule a WEEK IN ADVANCE it does not mean I can or will adjust it at the last minuet. Yes we have had streams start earlier because what was schedule to take place prior to 9:30 PM on those days was cancelled out right. It's why I prefer working weekday afternoons as opposed to evenings, because it meant everything was more perfectly compact with nothing interfering with each other.

Anyway, on that bombshell, we'll wrap this up! Have a great day folks! 


Thursday, December 3, 2020

Today's Notes 12/3/20

Good morning everybody,

First off Happy Birthday to my mom!

We got today off on a good foot with Fitness Boxing, and today was the 150th consecutive day of getting in that basic workout routine, staying on the Strength and Cardio sets at 35 minuets. Today included some footwork but only in the 3rd set, so everything was pretty steady. Consistency is key and I can safely say I always look forward to doing this first thing. I have to double to check to make sure that Fitness Boxing 2 will carry over my progress from the first game for when I eventually get it.

Fun fact about me, I use to listen a lot to 975 The Fanatic, a FM Sports Talk Radio station in the great Philadelphia area, particularly in the mornings, But ever since they unceremoniously kicked Tra Thomas and Sam Wilson to the curb in favor of Pat Egan, it became a chore to listen to. Now I see they basically have thrown Marc Farzetta out in favor John Kincade who was recently fired from the radio gig he had in Atlanta, I can safely say that that I won't be listening to The Fanatic in the mornings, as it heads back to being the cesspool it was when it was simulcasting Mike & Mike in the Mornings! 

Last night's stream ended up featuring The Division 2, as it's status of being a 'throw to' game continues to result in it staying on my Xbox One S. Big thanks to Iceman7667 for joining in as we roamed around DC taking care of control points and also I finally got to check out The Summit. Without knowing the full context of the first The Division game, I easily assume it's Ubisoft's way of wanting a literal Die Hard skyscraper for players to mess around in since its littered with Christmas decorations. 

Tonight's stream of course will focus on Star Trek Online, as we close in on catching up on all the story content for my Cardassian in the Klingon Empire saga. Thanksgiving day last week certainly resulted in a large chunk of the Discovery era content being taken cared of, so depending on circumstances of when I'm able to start tonight we'll certainly get the rest done. That said, looking at this week's patch notes and I find it funny the Developers are patching something in The 'Best Served Cold' event on the day the event is ending. Never change Cryptic Studios....

STAR TREK ONLINE PATCH NOTES 12/3:  

  • Resolved an issue that could sometimes prevent progression during the TFO, “Best Served Cold”, during the final phase.  
  • Updated the binding, selling, and value rules on a number of pieces of "starter equipment" so that they all are Bind-on-Pickup, No Value, but may be sold or discarded freely. 
  • Decreased the size of the Phase Pistol. 

And that will just about do it for today, hope you have a great one and we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!